Ubisoft has revealed a brand new take on the Assassin's Creed franchise. While rumors run amok that they won't be releasing a major title in the brand this fall for PC, Xbox One and PS4, the company has made it clear that new Assassin's Creed games are still coming out this year even if they aren't major releases.
Working with Blue Byte, Ubisoft announced that Assassin's Creed Identity is the latest game in the long running series and will launch exclusively on iOS devices starting February 25. The title is the first to appear on mobile devices and features a return to the Renaissance era Italy that was popularized in Assassin's Creed II, Assassin's Creed II: Brotherhood and Assassin's Creed: Revelations. There's a debut trailer for the game below.
The trailer reveals practically nothing about the game since it's just a mix of live-action segments with brief glimpses of the game's Unity 3D graphics. And yes, this newest Assassin's Creed will be running on the Unity 5 game engine. What exactly that entails for the gameplay I have no idea since they don't actually talk about the gameplay in the trailer at all. In fact, the press release barely reveals anything about the gameplay.
The only thing we know is that players will have to solve The Mystery of the Crows, and they will do so by creating an Assassin who starts off as a novice and eventually works their way up to becoming a Master Assassin. This is achieved by picking one of four different character classes, including a Berserker, Shadow Blade, Trickster and Thief.
The press release does not detail what the differences are between each character class, but I can only assume that the Berserker is for a lot of melee and up-close-and-personal combat, while the Shadow Blade sounds like they're more stealth-oriented. I can only assume the Trickster is good at misdirection and tricking enemies? The Thief seems fairly self-explanatory. Pick-pocketing and looting is likely the order of the day for the character class.
According to the press release, the game will utilize on-screen virtual joysticks for some of the movement, as well as tap-to-move controls. I'm not sure if they mean this applies for traversal and combat or just the parkour. The game will support third-party gamepad support, so if you have a gamepad that works with iOS devices you will be able to utilize it for the game.
The press release also reveals there will be a special Q&A on February 3 for the title that will delve deeper into the mobile-specific features and how they're bringing the Assassin's Creed experience to Apple's smart phones and tablets with the Unity 3D game engine.
The feedback for Assassin's Creed Identity hasn't been the most positive. Some gamers are looking forward to Ubisoft's newest entry in the game while others feel it's a misstep to focus on mobile devices since majority of hardcore gamers don't really like seriously gaming on mobile devices. We'll see how well this little experiment works out when Ubisoft's title launches at the end of the month.
Assassin's Creed Identity will be available on February 25 for $4.99. You will need a iPhone 5 or later, or an iPad 3 or later to run the title. The operating system needs to be iOS 7 or higher.
